View Full Version : A disturbing trend?
David Brinza
11-03-2007, 11:25
Two years ago, at the SoCal regional, virtually all of the robots completed inspection on Thursday. Last year, there were half a dozen teams that didn't pass inspection until Friday morning. This year at the LA Regional, only about half of the teams had completed their robot inspections by time the pits closed on Thursday night! The robot inspectors scrambled early Friday to get the robots for the first three qualifying matches inspected before the opening ceremonies. Inspections were on-going throughout most of Friday and one team didn't get onto the field until Saturday morning.
Size and weight issues, improper wiring (i.e. missing distribution blocks, incorrect wire guages), missing or non-compliant bicycle flag holders, and sharp edges were the most frequent reasons for teams failing inspection. We also saw teams with missing pneumatic components, illegal motors, and even last year's transmission.
Is this unique to the LA Regional or have so many teams had inspection problems in the other early regionals?
MrForbes
11-03-2007, 11:28
Arizona was the same....but I think it was more because most teams did not have a working robot in their crate, there was a LOT of robot building going on Thursday, and a fair amount Friday. Team 60 (of the winning alliance) started with a bare frame Thursday morning!
Incidently, I really didn't notice any impact from Update 16 (no lathes/drill presses/band saws in the pits), I stopped by the machine shop around 2 pm Thursday and the people working there were all just sitting around....nothing to do....
David Brinza
11-03-2007, 11:43
Arizona was the same....but I think it was more because most teams did not have a working robot in their crate, there was a LOT of robot building going on Thursday, and a fair amount Friday. Team 60 (of the winning alliance) started with a bare frame Thursday morning!
Yes, indeed, there were a lot of teams in LA that spent much of Thursday completing their robot. When they thought they were "done" and ready for inspection, the size/weight issues and other non-compliances would turn up.
I would recommend that teams get their robots onto the scale and into the sizing box as early as possible on Thursday morning. Better to catch an oversized frame when you've got some time to fix it, than to discover that problem a half-hour before the pits are closing..
bjimster1
11-03-2007, 11:58
I cant remember if all the robots were inspected on Thursday last year at the Florida Regional, though I know that many more were than this year. When as they were kicking us out of the pits on Thursday I looked at the board were they had the teams that were inspected, only 45% had passed and five more undergoing inspection.
mathking
11-03-2007, 12:12
At Pittsburgh there were only two teams not inspected Thursday. We (1014) were one (because we spent all day Thursday figuring out a pneumatic system problem that kept us from completing inspection) and Delphi ELITE (48) was the other. We were partially inspected on Thursday, I don't know about 48. The inspectors were good about having teams at least get weighed and checked in the box in the morning even if they were not ready for a complete inspection. There were some rookie teams that weren't aware of all the rules and came in with illegal bots, but the veteran teams (kudos to 1038 by the way) helped them out to pass inspection.
kireitenshi00
11-03-2007, 12:23
I do believe that most of the robots at the Pittsburgh regional "passed" inspection on Thursday and competed successfully on Friday. First match of the day... "You shouldn't have passed inspection, because your flag is mounted too low." Yea... 4 robots out of the 6 in the FIRST MATCH should not have passed inspection.
Billfred
11-03-2007, 12:55
Last year, it was sort of rough at UCF--about a dozen or so teams hadn't passed by pit closing. This year, the figure was about double--I wound up getting half-drafted as an inspector to help get through the crush.
Why is this the case? I've got some theories.
1) Possible misconceptions about inspection. Most of us know you can get a partial inspection, but there may be some folks who think inspection is an all-or-nothing situation--or worse, that failing inspection once means they don't take the field on Friday. It's an odd thing to think about, but you know how some folks can get the rules twisted around in their heads.
2) Lousy time management. Enough said.
3) Update #16. I spent this past weekend with 1902, who helped get 1062 running on Thursday. The vibe generally was that Update #16, with its ban on drill presses and bandsaws, slowed down the process. 1062, as I recall, was passed by the time I got to the regional on Friday morning--but eliminating the tools that help speed the process does not help the situation.
sanddrag
11-03-2007, 15:25
I agree with Dave Brinza here. I had absolutely no intentions being an inspector friday morning, but I got dragged into it anyway because HALF the teams had not passed. I don't mean to be harsh here, I was pulled away from my own team, of which I am a key member, to help teams who appear to have little knowledge of even some of the most basic rules.
Inspecting with Dave was great, but the situation in the pits was horrible. Since when is it acceptable to ship a crate full of parts, none of which resembe a finished robot? FIRST needs to do something to really amphasize the need to get inspected sooner rather than later. We know all the teams paid a lot of money to be here, and we don't want them to miss matches. But we aren't going to let you play, if you have not passed inspection, IN FULL. Why do so many teams not understand this? Why are so many teams so cal about missign matches? You could argue missing a match is like throwing away a couple hundred dollars! They spend 6 weeks and all this money building their robots, and put themselves in jeopardy of not being able to use it at all. Also, this puts the inspectors in a bad position because we want you to play, we really do, but when you show up at the event with stuiff that is so easily recognizable and spelled out in the rules as illegal, and you are missing the stuff that is required to be legal, what are we supposed to do?
If FIRST is listening, there needs to be some rule making it the team's resonsibility to get their robot inspected. Not the inspectors'. I would go to teams every 15 minutes, to see if there was anything I could check off, and they had so many people around the robot that I couldn't even see a sharp edge if there was one.
Back in 2002, teams actually shipped finished robots. Beleive me teams, on ship date, if your robot doesn't work, that is okay. But PLEASE make sure it is complete, and legal. Pass inspection on what you've got, then fix it, then get reinspected if you made a major change.
cziggy343
11-03-2007, 15:34
at vcu, only half the teams had passed inspection by 4:30 when most of our team left. but none of the robots missed matches because of inspection. but the reason for the delay wasn't the inspectors fault, it was the teams not ever getting to the inspection table.
Mike Martus
11-03-2007, 17:03
Sounds like the GLR Regional. I was an inspector there among a very veteran crew led by Dan K, lead inspector. We made every effort at inspecting from opening moment of Thursday, doing partials if possible. By the close of Thursday 1/3 ( about 20) of the teams had not completed a full inspection. This seems more than last year.
I observed many robots that were like ststed in earlier posts, not asembled with many hours of work to be done.
What hurts is that in the rush on Friday morning I feel the inspection is not of the same quality, everything is hurry up get it done. Safety is number 1 and cannot be rushed. All robots should follow the rules and conform to the specifications however we disagree with them. They are the rules we must ALL follow.
It is very stressful to get a robot designed and built within 6 weeks, we all understand that. Teams need to look at their resources and build within their constraints of time and $$$$$.
Hey teams..... writing the BOM on scrap paper from your head is not cool.
At GSR a lot of teams were done by thursday night but there were a lot of teams that still had to pass the saftey portion of inspection friday morning and a few teams that had not even started inspection before friday
1359th Scalawag
11-03-2007, 17:30
At the Pacific Northwest Regional, I didn't hear much about inspection problems. The only inspection problem our robot had was that it was a little overweight. So we drilled holes in some of the panels and came up 119.7 lbs.
For the most part, everyone was inspected-atleast partially- by Friday morning in WI. This happened only because we were getting extra inspectors and because we kept going up to teams and inspecting what little they had. But when I was inspecting I noticed a TON electrical mistakes like wrong wire gauges, missing parts and teams with weight issues.
thegathering
11-03-2007, 18:30
This year, robots have two different tasks that require two unrelated to be incorporated into the overall design. Perhaps the trend has some relation to the increased complexity of the robots this year over the past couple years?
Jeremiah Johnson
11-03-2007, 18:43
For some not-so-odd reason I forsee this happening at lot at MWR. There's a significant number of rookie teams. Some of which are bound to follow the trend mentioned here in this thread. Others will know their stuff, especially those mentored. I wonder how many teams will be building on Thursday.
David Brinza
11-03-2007, 19:42
This year, robots have two different tasks that require two unrelated to be incorporated into the overall design. Perhaps the trend has some relation to the increased complexity of the robots this year over the past couple years?For the veteran teams, I would agree with your assessment. The BeachBots - a very effective scoring robot with ramps found themselves a fraction of a pound overweight. Their short-term solution was to remove one of their ramps. I believe they ultimately removed a redundant motor in their arm in order to allow both ramps to be installed on the robot. Their final weight was 120.0 lb.
Rookie and 2nd/3rd year teams had non-compliance issues - not using correct wire guages, missing distribution blocks, pneumatic components, etc. I think part of the issue is the number of rules that the teams need to wade through (there are 116 rules in Section 8 - Robot of the Game Manual) to build a robot.
MrForbes
11-03-2007, 19:45
I think part of the issue is the number of rules that the teams need to wade through
that is probably a significant part of it! Keeping track of what's happening here on CD is a great way to catch the typical problems ahead of time, though....people discuss the new or confusing or gotcha rules, which helps newer teams become aware of them.
Lil' Lavery
11-03-2007, 19:53
at vcu, only half the teams had passed inspection by 4:30 when most of our team left. but none of the robots missed matches because of inspection. but the reason for the delay wasn't the inspectors fault, it was the teams not ever getting to the inspection table.
Actually, 638 did miss a couple matches, and 122 had to run to the field to make their first (Match 1) match.
DonRotolo
11-03-2007, 20:01
I can't say I saw this at the NJ regional - we were pre-inspected for weight & size around 11 am Thursday, then called for a full inspection mid-afternoon. I did not notice a crush Friday morning.
Maybe we're too flip in stating "it's not about the robot" ?? I mean, it really isn't, but maybe some teams are OK with the building experience and don't really care if they compete? I cannot imagine it myself, but who knows how some people think.
I agree with sanddrags's closing paragraph. Mentors and Coaches may need t step in with one or two weeks left, and take matters into their own hands if necessary*, to ensure that the team does not fail, and ships a robot that has a good shot at passing inspection. Mentors & Coaches also need to emphasize and hold the kids acocuntable for the rules - wrong gauge wire (for example) is simply inexcusable, for both the kids and the adults.
On 1676, we adults tru to stay out of it as much as possible, but we do check the work and insert wry comments at apropos moments (like "umm, is 24 gauge big enough for that spike? What do the rules say?")
Don
*That's the fun part, but we must try to resist the temptation.
David Brinza
11-03-2007, 20:45
Mentors and Coaches may need t step in with one or two weeks left, and take matters into their own hands if necessary*, to ensure that the team does not fail, and ships a robot that has a good shot at passing inspection. Mentors & Coaches also need to emphasize and hold the kids acocuntable for the rules - wrong gauge wire (for example) is simply inexcusable, for both the kids and the adults.
My oldest son, Matt, was a member of Team 16 (Bomb Squad). His role on the team was "compliance officer" and, basically, he verified the robot complied with the rules. I think this is a really good idea - the student can be the point-of-contact during inspections. A mentor can play the role of inspector while the student addresses the items. In this way the students and mentors being accountable to FIRST.
AznPrincess3089
11-03-2007, 20:53
I'll admit 1070 was one of the teams that was inspected friday morning (by 294's Andrew, who was amazingly nice enough to let 1070 go to their first match without a flashing light) since we were still working on the foot on thursday. i dont know what it was last year but this time, i think socal was used as a fix-it period before other teams' second regional so they were still making modifications on their robot. Does partial inspection on thursday count for anything?
I noticed alot of teams waiting. As soon as we got our robot out of the crate, we took it to the inspectors and passed weight/size inspection immediately. We then passed the rest of inspection once the inspectors began to make their rounds.
Now on Friday morning, there were only about 10-15 teams that needed to finish inspection...that is still quite a few too many.
Richard Wallace
11-03-2007, 21:23
I'm wondering if the reason for this trend is unprepared teams, or not enough inspectors? I'm leaning toward unprepared teams.
At St. Louis we had about the same number of inspectors (8) that we have had for the last three years, and about the same number of teams (45). As in previous years we assigned one inspector to each row of the pits, so each inspector was responsible for six or seven robots.
As of pit closing time on Thursday there were 37 teams that had completed inspection, five that had minor items pending, and three that had major items pending. No team missed a qualifying match, but two came very close.
My oldest son, Matt, was a member of Team 16 (Bomb Squad). His role on the team was "compliance officer" and, basically, he verified the robot complied with the rules. I think this is a really good idea - the student can be the point-of-contact during inspections. A mentor can play the role of inspector while the student addresses the items. In this way the students and mentors being accountable to FIRST.
The BeachBots (mentioned above) have a student/mentor team that is responsible to see that ALL robot requirements are met. We write up a detailed requirements document every year and check off the items as they are accomplished. Many of these requirements are in the rule book, others are "homemade" the result of experience. Many of the requierments remain the same from year to year, others change due to the game.
An example of a homemade requirement is one that "all extendables shall be retractable". We learned this one the hard way. "The robot shall shoot balls at a speed greater than 4 ft/sec and less than 12 ft/sec" is an example of a game driven requirement from last year.
If it looks like we will not be able to meet a requirement, we develop a plan for either accomplishing it or doing without the effected subsystem, on rare occasions we might rewrite the requirement some time during build.
In any case, we develop the requirements document BEFORE we start building or even designing the robot. It is a lot easier to hit the target if you know where it is.
ChuckDickerson
12-03-2007, 01:59
When our team left the pits about 5:30 Thursday night only 8 robots out of 37 had passed inspection at the Bayou. I was very worried Thursday night that a lot of our Friday matches would be 1 on 1 or 1 on 2 matches. Upon entering the pits on Friday morning all but 12 of the robots had passed. I was somewhat relieved until I started noticing robots competing with obvious major rules violations. It seems that the inspectors at the Bayou decided to just let stuff go. Wedge robots, duct taped up wheels to reduce traction, illegal parts used from previous kits, robots that didn’t meet height requirements, etc., etc., etc. Later I started noticing even more tape appearing on manipulators. When we asked the inspectors they said they were REQUIRING it. It seems that many of the robots were puncturing so many of the tubes that the refs and inspectors got together and decided that the best solution was to make the teams tape up the sharp points/edges. Uh, so now instead of penalizing teams for a violation of one rule we force them to violate another? Shouldn’t the teams have been required to either remove the sharp points/edges or remove their manipulator? We were flat out told that they were letting it go because there were so many rookies (13 of the 37) and it was un-GP to ask about it. Excuse me? Didn’t we all get the same rules on the same day?
There was a lot of that going on at Finger Lakes. It seemed like practice rounds only had one robot on each alliance. Its hard to say whose fault it is.
At pittsburgh, the inspection process was not anything like in the past. We went through weight and box then they looked over the robot and passed it. We did not have to go back through before the championship rounds like in the past.
Peter Matteson
12-03-2007, 13:24
At New Jersey I did notice a lot teams, mine included, that could not officially pass inspection until friday morning because we forgot/lost the PVC cap for the flag holder and couldn't go buy one until the end ofThursday when we left. Frankly, this was kind of embarassing that we missed it.
bfvaneyck
12-03-2007, 13:39
At the Wisconsin regional (23 rookies out of 52 teams), if I remember correctly, we had about 12 teams not passing by the end of Thursday, but most of these were missing BOMs and final weigh-ins. I did spend Friday morning watching one robot being reassembled after the team found out on Thursday that they were two inches too wide and had to completely disassemble their robot to cut off two inches of the chassis. In the end I think that they only missed their first qualification match.
bfvaneyck
12-03-2007, 13:42
At New Jersey I did notice a lot teams, mine included, that could not officially pass inspection until friday morning because we forgot/lost the PVC cap for the flag holder and couldn't go buy one until the end ofThursday when we left. Frankly, this was kind of embarassing that we missed it.
I noticed this problem last year at the regionals. This year we brought along four spare flag holders. We gave out one of them Friday morning at the Wisconsin regional.
chinckley
12-03-2007, 13:49
I wonder if the last minute inspections at GLR had to do with the great number of snow days late in the build season. We lost 8 build days due to weather constraints in the last 4 weeks of build season. We had weighed at school and were underweight and were a few pounds over when we weighed in Thursday morning so that is all we had to take care of really. We did pass on Thursday though.
Our first year, I think, we were first to pass.
It did seem to take many teams longer to pass than I ever remember.
Not sure why. A couple teams looked like they had lots of work to do
to get ready.
There were a few teams that didn't pass inspection until Friday, I know we were the only robot on our alliance in our 2nd match Friday morning.
We did everything except weight and signage on Thursday, we had to get signs reprinted Thursday night though because the lettering was too small, and wanted to weigh with them on just to make sure it was accurate.
Hopefully this issue will be mostly gone at later Regionals.
David Brinza
12-03-2007, 14:44
I noticed this problem last year at the regionals. This year we brought along four spare flag holders. We gave out one of them Friday morning at the Wisconsin regional.
That's a really good idea. I think I'll make a few flag holders for the San Diego Regional with "FIRST robot inspectors are your friends" labels on them!;)
David Brinza
19-03-2007, 14:26
I would hope that there were fewer teams not passing inspection by end-of-day Thursday this past weekend. The teams that already competed in a regional should have completed inspection early to get more practice time. Other teams have had three weeks of "fix-it" windows to get replacement and upgrade parts fabricate.
How did teams fare in the inspections this past weekend? Any missed matches??
In Detroit we had 4-5 robots that had not completed inspection by Thursday pit close, however all were complete by the start of competition Friday. At Great Lakes the week before, I think we had about 12 to go Thursday night, only one team was not complete at the start of competition.
Peter Matteson
19-03-2007, 14:31
I would hope that there were fewer teams not passing inspection by end-of-day Thursday this past weekend. The teams that already competed in a regional should have completed inspection early to get more practice time. Other teams have had three weeks of "fix-it" windows to get replacement and upgrade parts fabricate.
How did teams fare in the inspections this past weekend? Any missed matches??
Only 1 missed a match at UTC. I believe there were ~15 that didn't pass inspect on Thursday for mostly minor issues such as leaving their BOM at the shop on Thursday.
Billfred
19-03-2007, 14:38
Most of the holdups at Chesapeake were small things. One robot had significant issues that kept it off the field for a large part of the regional, and a couple more made it by the skin of their teeth.
Ryan Albright
19-03-2007, 14:56
I didn't get to see any inspections really at Florida Regional. What I saw and surprised me has already been mentioned, teams with unfinished robots. At the Fl regional in past years I can usually count on my hand how many teams are finishing their robots on Thursday. This year i watched practice match after practice match that maybe had one or NO robots out there for an alliance.
Correct me if i am wrong (Sorry i didn't read much of the manual this year and I didn't read any of the updates) but since their were new things to inspect this year maybe thats why it took longer. Example: the different weight and height classes
Brandon Holley
19-03-2007, 15:08
I find it funny that teams who have passed inspection at their first regional...have a difficult time passing at their next one...what does this say??
Jeff Pahl
19-03-2007, 15:10
I noticed this problem last year at the regionals. This year we brought along four spare flag holders. We gave out one of them Friday morning at the Wisconsin regional.
We brought 8 (I think) extra flag holders to Peachtree this year. They were all gone within 2 minutes of having an announcement made in the pits Thursday morning, and we could have given out another dozen.
Teams not reading the rules seems to be the biggest problem. Most of the teams that went through inspection early at Peachtree had already been to another regional. There were a lot of teams that didn't have team numbers on all 4 sides, used illegal parts from previous years kits, didn't have flag holders, etc.
We would have inspected earlier, but we forgot to charge the battery for the USB-Chicklet so we had to wait until we had working controls. However, we did go over early and get on the scale, and found out we had to either lose an inch of height or 1.1 lbs of weight (a miscalculation had resulted in our being 49" tall). We spend the time waiting for the battery to charge cutting the bottom inch off of our arm support column. We were very glad we didn't wait until late afternoon to get weighed the first time.
I encourage all teams to weigh and size as early on Thursday as possible. An unpleasant supprise at 9:30 is not nearly as unpleasant as it is at 5:30.
Ryan Albright
19-03-2007, 15:22
I find it funny that teams who have passed inspection at their first regional...have a difficult time passing at their next one...what does this say??
This says that everyone is volunteers and doing their best. As long as a regional is consistent, then its ok.
This was a major problem at Chesapeake. I know that one team in particular, 1629, was forced to play three of their seven qualification matches without one of their alliance members
Dominicano0519
19-03-2007, 18:00
In NJ we were the last team to get inspected, we were done by 6:30 on thursday but unfortunately could have neither our ramp nor our arm on the robot( we had a moving box) although we did manage to get the arm up for Philly
Team 60 (of the winning alliance) started with a bare frame Thursday morning![/QUOTE]
In defense of the Team, we did ship an inspection passable robot to AZ,
but had problems with certain gearboxes that worker the arm and the ramps. with no good repair possible, the Team scraped the original robot and rebuilt it from the ground up, dumping the ramps and an arm movement.
Geo.
Jeffrey Wong
20-03-2007, 12:14
Most of the holdups at Chesapeake were small things. One robot had significant issues that kept it off the field for a large part of the regional, and a couple more made it by the skin of their teeth.
Yea, we barely made it to our first match. We passed inspecting about 1 minute before our match started. It was close, but we made it. Hopefully we don't have to do that again in Boston...
Wayne Doenges
20-03-2007, 12:27
At BMR we had 5 robots that needed inspection on Friday.
One team (I'm not going to mention the team number) did not get fully inspected till around 1000. They missed 2-3 matches becaues of this.
It wasn't bad that they were late but it hurt the alliances that had to go 2 against 3 without them. We had one of these matches and I was really bummed that the other team only had two robots playing.
My hats off to Team 1872 from Puerto Rico. They pretty much had a crate of parts when they arrived at BMR. They busted their backsides getting their robot ready on Friday. Also thanks to Team 1319 for helping them.
sanddrag
26-03-2007, 01:10
San Diego went really well. There were some veteran teams that needed some time to fix a couple minor inspection things, but most everyone passed just fine. All were complete on thursday with the exception of like 2 or 3 teams.
bfvaneyck
26-03-2007, 09:17
At the Buckeye regional we only had three or four teams not passing by the end of Thursday. Most of these were final weigh-ins, sizings and/or BOMs. One rookie team had two other teams frantically working with them on Friday morning to get them inspected and to their first qualification match. We got them inspected just before their first match, but they were so late that their robot was not allowed on the field.
Compared to the Wisconsin regional, which had many more rookies, things went fairly well on the inspection front. I did notice when we were packing up our robot that we gave out three of our spare flag holders sometime during the regional.
David Brinza
26-03-2007, 10:49
At the Buckeye regional we only had three or four teams not passing by the end of Thursday. Most of these were final weigh-ins, sizings and/or BOMs. One rookie team had two other teams frantically working with them on Friday morning to get them inspected and to their first qualification match. We got them inspected just before their first match, but they were so late that their robot was not allowed on the field.
Compared to the Wisconsin regional, which had many more rookies, things went fairly well on the inspection front. I did notice when we were packing up our robot that we gave out three of our spare flag holders sometime during the regional.As Sanddrag said, the inspections went quite smoothly in San Diego (compared to LA). I brought 4 flag holders that I made with "Robot inspectors are your friends" labels attached. Three out of the four ended up on robots in the SD Regional.
Kapao69x5
03-04-2007, 10:04
At BMR we had 5 robots that needed inspection on Friday.
One team (I'm not going to mention the team number) did not get fully inspected till around 1000. They missed 2-3 matches becaues of this.
It wasn't bad that they were late but it hurt the alliances that had to go 2 against 3 without them. We had one of these matches and I was really bummed that the other team only had two robots playing.
My hats off to Team 1872 from Puerto Rico. They pretty much had a crate of parts when they arrived at BMR. They busted their backsides getting their robot ready on Friday. Also thanks to Team 1319 for helping them.
Thank you very much! But it's not over yet, we're going to ATlanta pretty soon.
Al Skierkiewicz
03-04-2007, 10:11
West Michigan was complete by close of pits on Thursday.
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